Tag: Rainbow Rowell

I’ve had this book for a few years now and it’s been sitting quite patiently in my TBR pile waiting for me to pick it up, muttering “to hell with it”, and get on reading. The fact that I’ve got books dating back to Christmas 2013 in the TBR pile is a fact I haven’t really accepted as wrong yet. I’ve got this theory that some books you’re just not ready for. Canterbury Tales? Not there yet. War & Peace? My stamina is not yet that advanced. Count of Monte Cristo? Auntie DeeDee: I will read it.

I’ll get there; I am still a young Padawan.

Anywhoo.

So Eleanor & Park has been quite patient with me and I final read it. My reluctance came from trying to juggle my study schedule, and then going through a phase of feeling I was too grown and stuck up to read such mere teen novels, then my best friend read it and hated it and so its been neglected. Apologies Rainbow. Also I read Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, which everyone seemed to love and constantly rave about, but I just didn’t think it was all that, so I worried that Eleanor & Park, which is always raved about, wouldn’t live up to its ravings. Add some more reluctance into the equation.

BUT I READ IT.

It was so so good.

After reading Gulliver’s Travels, this was a breath of fresh air to relax the mind and just get lost in a swirly curly romance. Now I know I’m only 18 and probably haven’t got a clue what I’m saying most of the time but this one reminded me what is was like to be young and in luuuuurve. (I can hear you adults yelling from the distance “You are still young!” Away wit ye; I am being an angsty teen.) But the simple bursting with excitement because ohmygod-he’s-holding-my-hand, and the absolute amazement of how such a simple gesture could be transformed into something magical by that special person was just fantastic to remember. It was so innocent and new and nostalgic back to the love-of-my-teen-life and it was gooey and fluttery and something to relax the mind.

“I just want to break that song into pieces, and love them all to death.”

It also brought to light all the social issues we realize as teens from our body image to racism to tackling stereotypes and abuse. I’m thanking Rowell for this little gem where I felt she was actually writing about real people, not superficial characters which happen just by chance to be petite and perfectly built. It was nice for a curvy girl who doesn’t fit in and a boy who wears makeup to be our protagonists and for both of them to not pretend they’re normal. They aren’t; they’re cool with it and so is the reader.

There is so much discovery explored in this book, which essentially defines our actions as teenagers finding out who we are and want to be.

“She never looked nice, she looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

Rowell, I’ll give you this one.

“…and his eyes were so green they could turn carbon dioxide into oxygen.”